


381. holding hands

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [47]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Exactly What It Says on the Tin, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-09 01:37:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7781824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)</p></blockquote>





	381. holding hands

****"Sarah," Helena says one day, apropos of nothing -- and Sarah looks up and realizes that it's just the two of them in Felix's loft, has been for she doesn't know how long. Helena is sitting on the couch, socked feet up on the cushions, knees opening and closing. Sarah, sprawled over the chair next to the couch, turns her head to look lazily at Helena.

"Huh?"

"When we were here," Helena says, "before."

"The party?" Sarah asks. "Shit, that was forever ago, huh?"

Helena shrugs a shoulder. "Not really. I remember." She looks down, seemingly fascinated by the bump of her knees against one another. "Happy memories are brighter. That one is the brightest." Her lips fold together.

"Yeah, me too," Sarah says, and winces at the sound: it's the voice she used to take when Kira was younger, _wow, monkey, that looks so good_. Even when it didn't. It's a fake voice, and she wishes it wasn't -- because the feeling behind it is true. She still remembers the sound of all of them laughing, different pitches; lying on the floor in a sprawl of identical limbs, thinking _how can we all be so different, how can her laugh not sound the same as mine_.

"Do you remember," Helena says, "after, when you and _sestra_ Cosima were in the bed, and Cosima was talking about honeybees and stars."

"You were listenin', huh?" Sarah says. Her first feeling is embarrassment. Her second is guilt. Both of these are familiar enough that she doesn't react to them overmuch. "Yeah, what about it?"

"You were..." Helena says, and then holds up her hands and puts them close together. "Like you and me. After Rachel." Her palms are flat together, like praying.

"Holding hands," Sarah says.

"Holding hands," Helena echoes.

"You've...done it before," Sarah says slowly.

Helena blinks at her, and then nods overly fast. "Yes," she says hurriedly. "With you. And also with Kira." And that, apparently, ends the list. Her head hits the back of the couch and she stares at the ceiling like it's fascinating. This is instead of what it is, which is: chipped as all hell.

Sarah just stares at her. What does she...do with that information, does she ask Helena to hold hands, does she tell her that it's normal to never do it? That she'd never held anybody's hand before either?

What she _should_ say -- that is, the truth -- is that she and Helena didn't hold hands. That this requires _holding_. And they didn't. But she doesn't want to take it away from her.

Instead she reaches out -- it's a weird angle, the way she's bent over the chair, but she manages to get her hand over Helena's hand. Helena's head shoots up like something out of an arcade machine; hair flies everywhere. She stares at Sarah's hand over her hand like it is the strangest thing in the entire world.

"Put your fingers through my fingers," Sarah says quietly. Helena does, and there: their hands are laced, finger to finger, skin to skin. Helena gives their hands a silly little smile and squeezes them. Shit, Sarah's shoulder hurts. She doesn't move.

"I like this," Helena says softly. "Our hands are hugging."

Sarah taps her thumb against the back of Helena's hand, tap tap. "Sure are," she says.

Helena looks at her and beams, wrinkling up her face. She taps her thumb back, against Sarah's knuckle -- tap tap. A tiny useless scrap of Morse code, passed between the two of them. A little message: _we're going to be okay._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


End file.
